


soul froze

by hectorpriamides



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, content warning for vague mentions of abuse.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 01:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9526457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hectorpriamides/pseuds/hectorpriamides
Summary: picture this: a world in which washing the sins from your hands in possible.





	

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr. http://horusconviction.tumblr.com/post/156341306250/summary-picture-this-a-world-in-which-washing

**i.**

Ronan’s first sin happens at six, when he said  _fuck_  for the first time loudly and startles both his golden mother and their golden cattle. Aurora led him by the hand and taught him to pray in the strange, dark hallway with a sink and nothing else. _Wash your hands here, to wipe away what you’ve done_ , without soap and in the grimy water spluttering from the faucet,  _and you’ll have to do it alone_. Her dry hand ran through his choppy hair, smiling sadly and away, not there, gone.

**ii.**

Ronan’s second sin, his second night in the dimly lit hallway five years later, happens when he stares at the boy (Gansey?) beside him. He stares at him like other boys stare at girls, an inkling in his stomach that while this isn’t wrong, it’s not quite all _right_. He apologizes, gruffly and with another curse, and the boy smiled and took it in stride.

**iii.**

Ronan gets older, grows with the cattle and the grass, and his sins in the form form of cussing grow. His voice grows deep, and his cusses long and often redundant. His second sin never leaves him either, but it is no longer Gansey, but a boy splattered with bruises he meets in the redemption hall. _Adam_ , the magician, green spread over his hands and leaves imprinted on his cheeks. They spend their time together in silence, elbows side by side and washing themselves past the wrist.

One night, when the silence is a bit deafening, and Ronan’s third sin still lingers in his system, his slurred words fall out of his mouth. “What did you do?”

And the broken silence falls like glass, loud and thunderous, noticeable. “I asked for love.”

Ronan snorts. “That’s bullshit.” (first man, who loved and was cast out of paradise for it.)

**iv.**

He finds a crow, one night, when he is alone and sin has finally washed off of his hands for the week. She is loud, screeches deafening and talons fierce. Dark indescribable things climbs along the walls, claws gripping sins that, while cleaned from body, are not cleaned from here.

Chainsaw, as he comes to know her, fights them off, and he is free to repent in peace. She follows him, by his head when he wakes up, and when he goes to school outside the windows. She scares Adam, random yelling, first man flinching back. She drinks from the sink, black beady eyes watching when Ronan lingers a bit around Adam. But Adam’s hands are strong and beautiful, and he’s easily distracted by them every time. The water grows cleaner, and the soft pads of his fingers prune.

They grip their hands together, at times, when Ronan thinks a bit too much about Adam, and whatever Adam has done. Chainsaw is more than bird, biting his ear when they’re done and alone on the roof of the Barns. She knows, perhaps, more than he does.

**v.**

Adam and Ronan come together least once a week to repent for their sins. They are always the same, deep in cleaning their hands and wiping themselves of sin. But change always happens, and now there is Adam, first man, bruises splashed over his right eye, gait obscured by a limp. “The fuck happened to you?” He drives away the concern in his voice.

“I told you, I asked for love.” Ronan carefully, with more softness then he has had in forever, shoves Adam down. He hisses, eyes screwing shut in pain. “I’m done asking.” Chainsaw yells, fluttering off of his shoulders and onto Adam’s. Her beak grabs the magician’s collar, yanking it back.

“…you don’t have to ask,” he admits. He turns the sink on, pure, clear water trickling out. For all their sins, for all their youth, things have become calm. He shoves his sleeves up, leather bands loose around his wrists and scars. It is nice to admit it. They have shared their transgressions together, and while Ronan does not know the intricacies of his sins, there are plenty of years to come.

Adam does not say anything for a few minutes. Worry creeps up Ronan’s spine like knives. Loving man like loving women is wrong. But there is so much else in the world that is worse then that. And he has never truly forgotten those feelings for Gansey, how alien they felt and now, how they exist heavily alongside his heart for the magician.  Emotions adjust, grow and become something new, and the third sin of Ronan Lynch is lust.

Over the quietness of sloshing water and Chainsaw’s chirping, Adam replies, “Neither do you.” Tentative glances, wet hands gently on bruised cheeks, and two sets of chapped lips because _really_ , what’s body care.


End file.
